Why Aussie doctors say DASH is the healthiest diet
High blood pressure? The DASH diet is designed to lower it. Photo: Getty
For six years in a row, an expert panel of doctors and nutritionists, – convened by The US News and World Report – has voted the Mediterranean diet the world’s best.
There is a lot to love about the Mediterranean diet. The New Daily loves it as much as anyone.
As we’ve reported, it preserves cognitive health and slows the pace of biological ageing, it protects your heart and mood, and may even protect against COVID-19.
But here’s something interesting: For five years in a row, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has voted the DASH diet as the best diet for overall health and wellness.
This is largely because the DASH diet is designed as an intervention to lower blood pressure, and to do it pretty quickly.
DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.
Here’s what the RACGP says:
The DASH diet can reduce blood pressure within two to four weeks (by 6 mmHg systolic and 3 mmHg diastolic).
After this initial reduction, blood pressure is maintained rather than reduced further. Effects are more pronounced in people who are hypertensive rather than normotensive.
The DASH diet may further reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease through reduction in total cholesterol, low density lipoproteins (LDLs) and body mass index (BMI).
So what is the DASH diet?
In our coverage of healthy eating, we tend to mention the DASH diet as an alternative to the Mediterranean. They’re quite similar.
The RACGP describes it as “a diet pattern that emphasises fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products, and which includes whole grains, fish, poultry and nuts but limits saturated fat, red meat, sweets and sugar-containing beverages”.
These changes result in “a reduced consumption of sodium and an increased consumption of potassium, calcium and magnesium compared with a typical Australian diet”.
Huge rise in unhealthy Aussies
As we’ve previously reported, one-in-three adult Australians have high blood pressure – also known as hypertension – which is more than six million people.
In 2009 it was one in five, or about four million people. That was 20 per cent of the population – and nearly 34 per cent today.
And half of those people don’t know they’ve got it – along with the attendant risks not only to their heart and arteries, but also to their brains, kidneys, and eyes.
This suggests that people aren’t getting their blood pressure measured routinely, are oblivious to the results, or they are not going to the doctor at all. Maybe they just don’t think about it.
Of those who received treatment, 40 per cent still had blood pressure that was above the recommended level. People who smoked, drank alcohol or had cerebrovascular disease were at greater risk of having elevated blood pressure.
Keep in mind that hypertension is also known as ‘the silent killer’. It contributes to more than 25,000 deaths in Australia each year.
Roughly, healthy blood pressure for most adults is defined as a systolic pressure of less than 120 and a diastolic pressure of less than 80.
Elevated blood pressure is defined as a systolic pressure between 120 and 129 with a diastolic pressure of less than 80.
DASH, the basics
The DASH diet doesn’t list specific foods to eat. Instead, it recommends specific servings of different food groups. These are foods rich in potassium, calcium, magnesium, fibre and protein. And they’re low in saturated fat and low in salt.
You can adapt your diet to the DASH guidelines by doing the following:
- Eat more vegetables and fruits
- Swap refined grains for whole grains
- Choose fat-free or low-fat dairy products
- Choose lean protein sources like fish, poultry, and beans
- Cook with vegetable oils
- Limit your intake of foods high in added sugars, such as sugar-sweetened drinks
- Limit your intake of foods high in saturated fats – these include fatty meats, full-fat dairy products, and oils like coconut and palm oil.
See here for the RACGP’s DASH eating plan.